Archive for April, 2010
Remember the case of Ataulfo mangos I picked up ridiculously close to the day we left town for Tofino? They came with us, and were kind enough to ripen two or three at a time, so we’ve been eating them steadily all week. In salads, on oatmeal, on French toast, and straight up. But we’re down to our last few, and it occurred to me they’d make a mighty fine pie, in a peachy sort of way – full of flavour and not overly juicy, they didn’t require anything in the way of thickener. Nothing to make them stodgy – just fruit, the merest skiff of sugar, and crust.
Being without a pie plate turned out to be a good thing – it reminded me how ridiculouly simple free-form tarts are. (The fancy name for these is a galette.) All it requires of the cook is for him/her to roll out pastry dough into a rough circle, slide it onto a baking sheet, pile (or daintily arrange) sliced fruit or berries overtop, haphazardly fold the edges of the pastry over to contain said fruit, and bake. If you want to get fancy, you could brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg and sprinkle it with sugar, or brush the fruit with warmed jelly. I did neither. I used a wine bottle to roll the pastry, and it was the easiest pie ever. It is the epitome of rustic – whomever first applied that word to food should win a nobel prize – you can be full-on sloppy with the rolling and the folding and it almost looks better for it.
The next morning we all nibbled on thin slices of it with our coffee; paired with the view, it was the best breakfast ever. (It might even be without the view – like the best kind of breakfast pastry, without the sweetness.)
Use any pastry recipe here. I tried one that has a particularly high ratio of butter to flour, making it sandy and shortbreadlike in texture.
Mango Galette
To make smaller individual galettes, divide the dough into howevermany pieces you’d like to make, and roll each piece into a circle. You won’t need as long a baking time.
Pastry:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 Tbsp. (ish) ice water
2-3 ripe mangos, peeled and sliced
sugar, to taste
In a bowl or the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour and salt; add the butter and blend with a fork or pastry cutter (or pulse with the food processor) until the mixture is crumbly, with pieces no bigger than a pea. (You don’t want the butter to be completely blended; some should be, with some pieces left bigger.) Add the ice water and stir just until the dough comes together, adding a little more of the dough is dry. Gather into a ball, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.
Preheat oven to 375°F. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about a 14″ circle (it doesn’t need to be perfect) and slide it onto a baking sheet. Place the mango in concentric circles on the dough, leaving a 1″-2″ border around the edge. Sprinkle the fruit with sugar (to taste – depending on how sweet your mangoes are) and fold the edges of the crust over the fruit, letting it fold wherever it wants to. If you like, brush the crust with a little beaten egg and sprinkle with more sugar – coarse, if you have it.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until golden. Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving; cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 8.
April 11 2010 | dessert | 12 Comments »
On the day we left Calgary I came home from work and found a container on my doorstep. It was full of homemade muffins and cookies, a bag of goldfish crackers and a Fruit & Nut bar (how did she know?) – car snacks for our road trip. All I had done was toss the remainder of the mangos back into their box (if I was a nicer person I would have left them for my sister) along with a dozen apples and a few blood oranges. And made two peanut butter sandwiches, but only because I’m cheap enough (or environmentally conscious enough?) to care about using up the last third of a loaf of bread.
The cookies C made for us to eat in the car weren’t instantly identifiable as such. In my panic to finish up work, upload some video, pack and get out the door at a reasonable hour I opened the lid, saw beige, closed it again, re-read the card. Later, as we wound through Rogers’ Pass, I remembered the container and dug it out from under piles of rubber boots and pillows. The cookies were enormous and thin, crisp-chewy, buttery-sweet. Like those lacy cookies that are mostly butter and sugar with some oatmeal thrown in to make you feel better about eating them.
So I sent her a SMS message (how high-tech am I?) from the highway and asked for the recipe. “Just oats and sugar”, she sent back. “Easy!”
I pushed for more details. 3 tablespoons of flour, she hinted. And some vanilla.
With lace cookies on the brain, I set about finding the recipe. When staying on the furthestmost west coast of Canada, on an island, where ingredients are available but pricey, the house is full of preschoolers and adults who need something sweet too, quick stir-together recipes that require little more than a bowl and spoon are key. With oatmeal, butter and sugar on hand, oatmeal lace cookies, it turns out, are perfect cabin food. And perfect with a mug of tea or hot chocolate after a blustery afternoon on the beach.
(Crisp & Chewy, Sweet & Buttery) Oatmeal Lace Cookies
I piecemealed together this recipe from Cathryn’s hints and a few recipes I poked around for.
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch salt
1 1/4 cups oats
3 Tbsp. flour
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a small pot, melt the butter with the brown sugar, vanilla and salt. Put the oats and flour into a mixing bowl and add the butter-sugar mixture. Drop large spoonfuls 3″ apart onto baking sheets that are sprayed with nonstick spray or lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat; with a spatula, spread each cookie out so that it’s about 2″ in diameter.
Bake for 8-12 minutes, until the cookies are bubbly and golden. Let cool completely on the sheets before removing. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.
April 10 2010 | leftovers | 16 Comments »
I discovered a box of strawberries in the bowels of the fridge this afternoon, and cream that needed to be used up before we leave, so I made a batch of bittersweet chocolate scones to carry them. (To our mouths, that is.)
I was a little bored with traditional biscuits, to be honest, and remembered a recipe I had seen at some point in the past year – this laptop is like an ultra-slim carrying case for every cookbook and recipe I could possibly need – and we had cocoa.
I’m going to send you over to Seven Spoons for the recipe though – it’s hers, and I want to introduce you directly if you have not yet made her acquaintance. I know you’re going to be fast friends. The only things I did differently was to cut in the butter with a whisk and my fingers (not having an electric mixer), stir a handful of mini chocolate chips into the dry ingredients (that’s what we had), use half and half instead of 18% cream and skipped the egg white wash; the dough was plenty sticky to allow the sprinkle of sugar overtop to adhere.
Dinner itself was sourced locally – plucked directly from the ocean with our own hands. (Yes, we caught, killed and ate our meal. Or more accurately, I caught, boiled water for, and ate mine). Having dropped our crab trap off the dock about a block away a few times with no luck, we were tipped off that crabs are particular fans of hot dogs. Who knew? So we inventively tucked a few into an empty water bottle, rigged it up with wire in the cold rain, and dropped it again. Voilà – crab for dinner. With garlic butter, boiled new potatoes, spinach salad with mangoes, and red wine from the Okanagan. The kids were more enamoured with the crab bait.
April 09 2010 | leftovers | 9 Comments »
The ham was for dinner on Easter Sunday – I’m a little behind. After dinner there was a well-timed power outage; just as we were clearing the dishes and it began to get dark, all went out until about 11 pm. We scrambled for candles and dry firewood as the kids squealed – it was great timing, in terms of drama and convenience – dinner was done with (except for the pie, which we didn’t really need anyway) and it was just beginning to get dark, necessitating candlelight and conversation.
Which is all to say I was unable to report our dinner, and yesterday when the sun finally came out we rushed to take advantage of it.
By the time dinner -leftover ham and cheese biscuits- was over with, the crab trap was dropped, sparklers were lit, baths had been had and we had played a few rounds of Blokus, I couldn’t keep my eyes open to filter through all the photos of the past two days and report back. Plenty of photo opps there are here, let me tell you.
But to backtrack to the dinner of two nights ago – since it was Easter and all I had picked up a ham on our way across the island, but once we were here I had to make do with what ingredients were around for a glaze, and wound up thinning some marmalade with balsamic vinegar to brush overtop. It worked just swimmingly.
You really don’t even need a recipe for marmalade baked ham with carrots and roast potatoes, and to write one out would suggest it needs to be followed. So here’s what you do: put the ham in a baking dish, pop it in a 350°F oven and bake it for about an hour; meanwhile chop some potatoes, cover them with cold water in a pot and bring them to a boil; as they cook, slice up a few carrots. Drain the potatoes, return them to the pot, put the lid back on and shake the pot a bit to chuff them up – bashing the edges a bit will help get them nice and crispy.
Once the ham is heated through, crank the oven up to 400°F and brush the ham with marmalade thinned with some balsamic vinegar; I used a couple tablespoons to about a third or half cup of marmalade (brush it toward the end – the sugar will burn if it’s in the oven for too long).
Scatter the carrots around the ham and toss them with any juices that have accumulated, or drizzle them with oil (this produces some mighty fine carrots – infused with ham juices, they get some of the marmalade on them, too). Spread the potatoes out on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle them with oil; stir around to coat them and slide them into the oven underneath the ham. Cook for another half an hour, stirring the potatoes once or twice, until they’re golden. You might want to pull the ham out and get it going – take out the carrots and slice the ham and such – then pull the potatoes out right as you’re heading to the table.
The potatoes -and cooking method of- spurred kitchen conversation about Michael Caine, and how he has a perfect roast potato recipe that’s worth a try. I may just – for research purposes, of course.
The leftovers might have made an even better meal – warmed and thickly sliced and served on warm split cheese biscuits. The bone was simmered into stock, which this morning was turned into a pot of black bean soup. I got my $16 worth.
A basic biscuit recipe is invaluable when you’re cooking away from home – particularly in kitchens that might not be fully equipped – to make a batch of biscuits all you need is a bowl and fork. The same basic recipe and technique can be called into service for breakfast (add berries or raisins) or dessert (add a spoonful of sugar and split, then fill with berries and cream) or as a quick ballast to a bowl of soup or vehicle for sloppy Joes or chili. Everyone should be able to mix up a batch of biscuits.
As soon as W is old enough, I’ll teach him how, and likely hover beside him at the kitchen counter and watch – like my mom used to oversee my scales on the piano – until he can do them himself. If you can make a batch of biscuits, you can toss a handful of grated cheese into the dry ingredients and make cheese biscuits. Which are wonderful, it turns out, with red huckleberry jam, should you happen to find some in the freezer from last summer.
Whole Wheat & Olive Oil Cheese Biscuits
Use all-purpose flour instead of the whole wheat if you like, and all butter (instead of butter and oil) if you want.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup olive or canola oil
a big handful of grated old cheddar
3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a mixing bowl (or in the bowl of a food processor) stir together the flours, baking powder and salt; add the butter and oil and pulse or stir with a wire whisk or fork until crumbly. If you’re using a food processor, transfer the mixture to a bowl. Toss in the grated cheese.
Add the milk and stir gently until the dough begins to come together. For wedge-shaped biscuits, pat the dough into a circle that is about 1” thick on a cookie sheet. Cut the circle into 8 wedges with a knife or pastry cutter and separate them so that they are at least an inch apart on the sheet. For round biscuits, pat the dough about 1” thick and cut it into rounds with a biscuit cutter, glass rim or open end of a can, gently rerolling the scraps only once to get as many biscuits as possible.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden. Serve warm. Wrap well and freeze any you don’t eat the same day. Makes 8-12 biscuits.
April 07 2010 | leftovers | 11 Comments »
Did you hear about the brutal storm that has been hammering the west coast for the past few days? Lucky for us we made it to Tofino before they cancelled ferries and flights – there have been plenty of Easter travellers stranded this weekend. My dad was one of them.
He was here when we arrived, but was supposed to leave last week – long story – so yesterday, as he was packing up to take the bus to Nanaimo to catch a flight to Vancouver, then Calgary, I decided to make him a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies to sustain him on his 9 hour trek. It occurred to me as I pondered my limited baking supplies (that includes several bags of oats) that a) I haven’t made oatmeal raisin cookies for a mighty long time, b) he loves oatmeal raisin cookies, and 3) I in fact have never posted a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies here.
So I made some. Because I don’t have my old recipe with me I flipped through a few websites, then winged it – for my dad, I used half canola oil and half butter, and only half a cup of packed dark brown sugar (compared to the up to two cups I saw in some recipes) and truly -they were plenty sweet, moist and chewy, buttery without being greasy, heavy on the oats and raisins. You could, in fact, cut it back further – to 1/4 cup total (2 Tbsp. each butter and oil) – I’ll never make them any other way.
But- back to the story of my dad’s extended journey home. Have you ever seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles? He lived it last night, minus the loveable John Candy character. The bus broke down en route to Nanaimo; he managed to get a ($70) cab to the airport, where it was announced that his flight was cancelled. In line for some food when the call was made, he was at the end of the line to try to get on another flight. He managed to book one for this morning, so needed to find a hotel. He hopped on a shuttle and arrived at one just as he realized his checked bags were still at the airport. He went back to the airport as the highway closed due to a vehicle rollover. He eventually made it back to the hostel (did I mention it was a youth hostel?) and there were no rooms left – being the long weekend and a few hours after the ferries and flights had been cancelled.
He eventually got a room when someone happened to call and cancel theirs as he stood there with his bags.. but when he got to the room there was no alarm clock (nor wake-up service) to get him up early enough to catch his 6:30 am flight. He walked to find a store that sold alarm clocks and bought one, plus batteries. Last I spoke to him he had just arrived back to find there was no soap nor shampoo; he was heading out again on a quest for some.
And I thought all he’d need to survive the trip was a bag of cookies.
Dad’s Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
a good shake of cinnamon
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup raisins or other dried fruit
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl beat the butter, oil, brown sugar and cinnamon until creamy; beat in the egg ad vanilla.
Add the flour, oats, baking soda and salt and stir until almost combined; add the raisins or other dried fruit and stir just until blended. Drop large blobs on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes, until set around the edges but still soft in the middle.
Makes 1 1/2-2 dozen cookies.
April 03 2010 | cookies & squares | 16 Comments »
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